saw you with your make-up running down
by lydiamartins
Summary: <html><head></head>You came crashing in, like the realest thing.-—TiaJeffrey, slight TiaRocky.</html>


**title: **saw you with make-up running down  
><strong>characters: <strong>Tia, Jeffrey, Frankie, Liam, Rocky  
><strong>summary:<strong> You came crashing in, like the realest thing.-—Tia/Jeffrey.  
><strong>an: **i just started watching this series-it's pretty much the same as the 'gone' series so i thought that i would write this completely au, probably OC storyverse. i should probably be reviewing but ap chem um. this is for the wonderful lauren (insanities) for septemberiigge.  
><strong>disclaimer: <strong>i don't own anything besides the story idea; the original characters and everything else belong to BBC (and its writers).**  
><strong>

...

At first, she falls in love with a boy who promises that he's going to love her one day (he never actually says the words; she's the one who says them, but that's what happens in all of those dramas she watches, except in reverse, and everybody seems happy, albeit a little belligerent, there) and instead cuts her off: _holding on and letting go,_ are the words that he had used, in an attempt to sound Year 7 poetic; in response, flustered, Tia pours a jug of lukewarm lemonade on top of his perfect hair, and smiles. "The field trip will take your mind off of things," her supposed best friend promises.

"Yeah, right," Tia rolls her eyes. "You know what, I'm not going to even think about him."

"You're going to think about him—the two of you have dated since forever." _That's not the truth, _Tia attempts to say. _Rocky and I—we didn't date since forever. We dated for what, three months? That's not forever. I got braces three months ago. Oh, god, three months is forever. _

"Thanks," she speaks sarcastically, tilting her head to the side. "I just can't wait until this day is over."

The first time Jeffrey sees her, it's in the middle of Year 9: twelve-and-three-quarters (you don't forget the three-quarters, not when time means so much) and thirteen, they are, and it barely even counts. They're from different schools, each on their own field trips to the big city: it's about something relating to economics, but really, their teachers are just bribing them with ice cream and promises of extra credit if they ask thoughtful questions to the tour guide and make sure not to cause too much of a disruption to the rest of the individuals there.

She's standing at the front of the crowd, red-brown hair straightened and falling past mid-back, head slightly hunched over; he notices her because she's the only one who asks any of the questions. "Why is the painting that way?" and "If you look at it in a certain way, it doesn't look like they're in love: it looks like he's trying to kill her. What's up with that?"

He ends up smiling, for one reason and another; she briefly glances at him before turning back to her phone, her left hand pulling her hair back and pulling at it, hard. Tia shuts her phone, hoists her off-white shopping bags over her left shoulder, and walks the other way.

The collection of people are scattered across the art gallery (their teacher had finally given up and resorted to showing them 'the wonders of the modern art collection', whatever that was); an abstract sort of paint-splattered portrait was to the left, a television displaying the timeline of famous artists in front, and a marble coated fireplace to the right. A cluster of students gathered around the gift shop, fishing through their wallets for enough money to buy some fifty-cent sweets; the wind rustles, and time moves past.

...

Truth be told, if the adults hadn't disappeared, they wouldn't have met again. But the adults do disappear on the morning of November 3rd, and they do meet again, for better or for worse.

...

Her nails are past the point of repair; they're chipped, with the faintest trace of violet-indigo polish applied, and mascara is dotted on her forearm like a sprinkle of freckles, except they resemble some sort of disease instead of being attractive. There's a crash downstairs, and Tia sighs. "Frankie," she calls out. "Your mom's going to be home soon; you should go get ready for lacrosse."

The silence is eerie, but familiar in a sense.

Downstairs, there is an odd group of seven or so children who fit together in an odd way that would only happen in a situation such as this one. Tia takes a deep breath—inhale, then exhale, she reminds herself—and sighs again. "What's gone wrong now?"

Five voices pipe up at once, before they all turn to who seems to be their elected group leader: Sadiq. Tia's known him since they were children, and there's a tense expression on his face that she's seen thousands of times before. "The adults," he squirms under her gaze, and for a moment, she is reminded of past memories that suddenly make everything seem so different these days. "The adults are gone."

Hands on her hips, Tia rolls her eyes. "Is this a practical joke, Sadiq? Because it's not very funny. Actually it's not funny at all."

"I wish I was joking," he shakes his head, in a melancholic manner. "The thing is, the six of us have looked everywhere for the adults, anybody above the age of fourteen really: we've tried phones, but there's no cell reception. And there's some sort of barrier fencing us off from the rest of the world, or at least that's what we've heard from around."

"From around?" Tia scoffs. "Yeah, right," she shoves past them. "This has been a great joke, guys."

...

It takes her four hours to get accustomed to the fact that the adults are gone. Occasionally Tia will be doing something, whether it be watering the plants or dusting the sheets for crumbs in the hotel, and she'll just have to sit down and remember that they're the grown-ups now, the thirteen and fourteen-year olds, that is.

She used to spend evenings hunched over a laptop and a lab notebook, randomly writing down the same repetitive phrases with Coldplay in the background, blasting through her ears, blinking her eyes every now and then (because, honestly, chemistry was not as interesting as the professor seemed to make it out to be) and eventually falling asleep mid-sentence, the ink stain bleeding through onto the carbonless copy. These days, she spent evenings doing her share of the chores, making sure that Frankie and Liam were inside of the hotel and that nobody else had snuck in.

It's nothing short of absolutely terrifying. "You know what?" Tia speaks rhetorically. "The worst part about this is that I'm never going to get my braces off."

Holly is a thin girl, with uneven fringe bangs strewn across an ashen forehead; perhaps, her main priority in life is not make-up (nobody sensible as of five hours ago would have that as their utmost priority), but looking nice never hurts, Tia thinks. Holly shrugs, "You could."

"I'm not trusting any of the kid dentists around here."

"Sooner or later, these kid dentists are going to grow up and become adult dentists, so you should be able to trust them then."

"B-but," she stutters. "They wouldn't have had proper training, not going to a university and all that." She's from understanding that education comes first, then it's the utmost priority in one's life; without education, she'd end up on the streets or if she was really unfortunate, she would become part of slave trafficking, or something horrendous like that: her mother repeats words thousands of times, and most times, they get muddled in her head and strewn around with the other millions of thoughts already there.

"Then," Holly sighs dramatically. "You won't ever be getting your braces off."

...

Tia awakes to blood-curling screams and hasty tugging of her bedsheets and Jeffrey's ice-blue eyes.

"What the hell." She tilts her neck back, groggily, and reaches blindly for some water; her eyes feel dehydrated, if, she thinks, that's even possible, before she looks through the window, just for a moment, and sees twenty or so children or so. "What the hell," Tia echoes.

"I don't know why they're here, but they could storm through the glass," Jeffrey speaks quickly, as though he's taken in a breath and then speaking all the words at once until another breath must be taken. "There's only four of us, now that the rest of them have left: we won't be able to hold them off, and then where would we say? There aren't any other hotels around here, at least not somewhere we could walk to."

She stands up, pushing her hair out of her face. "Where'd they come from? Did you think to ask them?"

"The only way for me to ask them would be if I opened the doors. I'm not a complete idiot, Tia."

"We can't come off as confrontative. Some sort of full-blown war's the last thing that we need. Did you try to contact Sadiq and the others?"

"Skype's down." (It's a bit strange, Tia later thinks; how the younger chlidren seem to have assumed control over one another—whoever has the most weapons, the best food: in reality, whoever is maintaining a calm appearance the best, these are the people who are respected. Whenever they travel, the words of _the Sparticles _seem to be spoken reverently on cherry-stained lips, red and bitten raw, and they are not forgotten; and not being forgotten is a nice feeling).

"Did you check the barrier?"

Frankie bursts into the room, Liam following closely behind. They speak worriedly, arms crossed, and a mixture of dirt and mud smeared across their faces. "The barrier—" Frankie starts.

"The barrier-it's gone—" Liam interrupts.

"Stop interrupting me! It's gone, it's gone, it's actually gone."

There's a sharp pain in her lower back, and Tia thinks that this is as awake as she wants to get at six in the morning. "What do you mean it's gone?"

"It's gone," Frankie speaks slowly. "G-O-N-E, _gone_."

"It can't just disappear!" Tia insists. Then, weakly, "Can it?"

...

Something curls and clenches in her stomach; the water catches at the back of her throat, it tastes like bitter lies and memories that are meant to be forgotten but circulate, and to a discerning eye, Tia stares blankly into the reflective surface and marvels at the way, that though everything has somehow transformed itself into pandemonium, the simplest things are still the same. "The water's poisoned," she states flatly, pouring it into one of the plants. Unlike in the comics, the plant doesn't magically wilt, but one of the ashen green leaves droops slightly.

Tia stares at the remainder of water in the glass and sips on it, legs crossed, perched on the back porch of the hotel. The wooden splinters carve designs into her feet and she grits her teeth, feeling the water slosh around in her stomach, rushing over the points of her teeth and the top of her throat, and wonders how to make meaning of all this. There's a calling sound-a sort of yell-that erupts from the bottom of her throat, and Tia doesn't quite know why it's being emitted, and she's paralyzed for a moment, staring at the deer, who blinks its eyes, and then is gone. There's the patter of footsteps, and the next thing she knows, Frankie's pulling on her leg. "What's wrong, Tia?" she asks, innocently.

"Nothing," Tia shakes her head. "I just thought I saw a deer-completely bonkers, I know." The thing is, nobody's seen any animals for weeks; pigs and goats and chickens, they've all gone missing. The Plague, some suspect; others who decree themselves more sensible say that somebody's stealing them, maybe one of Fizzy's gangs, all secretive and such. "Why're you here?"

"I heard you scream." Frankie shrugs.

She sighs. "No, you know what I mean: you couldn't have possibly heard me scream if you were back at the hotel. I've gone at least three, four miles into the woods; honestly, I don't even remember why I came here. You shouldn't be here, though. It's not safe—"

"Shut it, Tia. I'm eight years old now, I don't need a babysitter."

...

There isn't any signal on the cellphones, but the eight of them are able to communicate through other ways: there's an older girl with the child of a heart who used to be at Oxford who lends them her computer-it's a wonderful device, state-of-the-art technology and all that, and plus, there's Skype. It doesn't need wi-fi, which is one of the many things they haven't got, and the signal's only fuzzy every now and then.

"Hello," Tia offers cautiously; on her left, Jeffrey is leaning in a little too close for comfort, Frankie is tugging at her leg, and Liam is complaining about how there's nothing fun to do at the hotel, and that he wants to go 'adventuring'. "Do you guys hear me?"

A fuzzy image of Sadiq and Reese appears on the screen; hundreds of kilometers away, it's almost as if they're there. "Yeah," Sadiq exchanges a puzzled look with Reese who's focusing her eyes on a pinecone, held precariously on the palm of her right hand, for no apparent reason. "I can hear you. Not so sure about Reese, though. Listen, we've found something new-"

"The pinecone's on fire," Tia attempts to remain calm. "It's on fire."

Sadiq shrugs, casually. "Reese can set things on fire with her mind. And more."

"What the bloody hell. What's wrong with her?"

"She can hear you," Reese speaks dryly. "And we should let you know that we saw one of the parents."

Jeffrey and Tia exchange looks of panic, and Jeffrey's the one to pull himself together enough to mumble out a few words. "What? Where? Where'd you see them?"

"In the library," Reese smiles. "I saw them. They couldn't see me, though. Which was nice. I don't want to see my caretaker again."

...

"You know," Holly mentions one one of the days lost track of. "Life like this isn't too bad."

Tia rolls her eyes. "Yeah, whatever you say."

"Don't say that," Tia snaps. "We're going to get the adults back, whatever it takes. You know that. That's why we're doing whatever we're doing: so that we can rejoin the two worlds back together, destroy Fizzie's stupid plan—because a five year old kid cannot be King of the world, it's just absurd, really—and everything will go back to normal, it has to, it has to!"

There's a moment of silence before Holly raises her hands and laughs. "Chill, I was just joking."

Later, Tia tells herself that her outburst was because Reese was in the room and Reese probably wants her parents back (before she remembers that Reese doesn't have any parents) and not because she misses her parents, because she's an adult now, and adults can't have emotional breakdowns like this. They can't: she can't.

...

She finds a half-beating heart buried deep in the woods; the palpitations of her heart are increasing, and her toes are curled, her fingers clenching and her teeth are biting down into her raw skin, making crescent-shaped marks. The woods whisper around her like a secret, and she can feel the generic thoughts of alarm forming in her head, and makes a mental reminder to drink more water and take a pill of Motrin every twelve hours. "Hello," he says cautiously, and she jumps, turns arounds, and fakes a smile.

"—ello," she speaks coarsely and coughs. Tia tilts her head to the side, calculating expression. "Do you have a bow by any chance?"

He seems taken aback. "Like, a bow-and-arrow bow?"

"Yeah, a bow-and-arrow bow."

There hasn't been anything useful in the market these days: there are rotten strawberries with mold growing around the top, squished from transportation, yet those are the foods that are greedily grabbed and stuffed in children's mouths; there are Honeymaid crackers, some sort of crunchy thing that has grown stale with time, notebook paper and calculators (because despite the end of the world, school continues for most—_When my mom comes back, _a girl with thick black hair had said, _she'll be mad if I didn't do my homework_—and Tia didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise), and there aren't any weapons left.

Sometimes, when Sadiq is feeling rebellious enough, he'll lead the seven of them to an old bunker warehouse sort of thing down by the river (the river with Serena, nobody forgets) and let them stock up on weapons. Most other times, he yells at the top of his lungs when he spots any of them with weapons: it's an overreaction, no doubt, but as he reiterates daily, violence isn't something that he stands for. _I'm not trying to be violent, _Tia had attempted to say. _I'm just trying to defend herself._

Sadiq had only shook his head, sadly. _How long before those two motives blend together?_

"What'd you need a bow for?" He seemed curious enough; it was almost amusing, seeing that there was an old-fashioned bayonet strapped to his waist, a light gun stuffed in his cargo pant pockets.

"Hunting," Tia makes up, on the spot. It's a rather good lie, she thinks. Nevertheless, she's not the type of girl to hunt: she's not the type of person to hunt. There's tons of leftover food at the hotel, and meat isn't even necessary these days—mainly because Frankie has grown excessive attachments to all of the farm animals, and refuses to have them slaughtered; instead, they sustain themselves on vegetables and fruits and breads and the occasional mint candies that Jeffrey buys for the younger ones, and it's not even hard at all. It's just life.

"Hunting's illegal."

She groans, and rolls her eyes. "It's not illegal: it's allowed. Just, uh, just make sure that nobody's around when you're hunting, 'cause if somebody finds you, then they'll report you to Fizzie, and—nevermind, can you just get one?"

He shrugs. "I don't have anything to trade it in for."

"You'll find something."

...

"You're going to be there in, my future. I think I can count on it," he thinks.

"I really like you," he never says.

Jeffrey's head is filled with a million thoughts, and sometimes he forgets the important ones.

...

Somewhere across the days, she catches him staring at her; they're on a picnic in a central park, and Tia sees him watching, almost observing her, and faces him. "What're you doing?"

He shrugs, maintaining eye contact. "Nothing."

After a moment, Jeffrey looks away. "You know, Tia, I've been meaning to tell you for some time no—"

Frankie, a mess of icing smeared across her lips, runs, breathless across the park, and bends over, hands on knees. Her voice is coarse and dehydrated, and the skin of her face is ashen; her amber hair is a mess of curls, and a self-constructed gun is strapped to the inside of her right leg. "It's Holly."

Tia sighs, "I told you, Frankie, it's not safe. You shouldn't be carrying a gun, not at your age."

Frankie places her hands on her hips. "You know, with all the adults gone, it's different. I'm 7 and you're 15 and you're one of the oldest people here, so it's like you're a senior citizen, so I'd be half your age, so I'm practically 30. Thirty year-olds have guns."

"Holly's in trouble, then?" Jeffrey looks up, something in his eyes flickering.

Frankie nods, emphatically. "And we've got to go, now."

...

It's two weeks later when he gets the words out:

Something changes during the picnic: it's sort of a once-in-the-lifetime opportunity because the sky isn't hazy, with the promise of acid rain and hail later in the night; it's bright and sunny and it's a foreshadowing of something horrible to come—Frankie and Liam run in circles relentlessly, until finally being allowed to go to whatever community picnic had been organized. Their fingers brush, and she recoils slightly. "You know, I think a lot about you, T."

She pulls back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear shyly. "I know you do."

...

She tells Jeffrey that she loves him several times; the first time, Tia didn't really mean it, not if she sits down and thinks deeply about it.

The whole spectacle with turning fifteen had been a total letdown: a part of her had wanted to die, to be limbs and particles astrewn, left screaming with no voices of others to hear, only her own haunting one. Another part had wanted to stay; for a million reasons, really. Because Jeffrey couldn't possibly take care of Frankie and Liam by himself, and she didn't want to miss out on getting the adults back, if they were ever coming back.

So, she tells him she loves him on a piece of paper at night, and in the morning, when she's fifteen (and alive, she's brilliantly alive) his radiant smiles makes the hesitant words worth it.

...

Before Rocky came along, the age difference between Jeffrey and her was never a bother: she's twenty-six days older than he is, and in a world where most of the boys she knows are five-year olds with guns, there's no big deal. Adults are the ones who spread judgmental rumours, shaking their heads and tutting disapprovingly: without the adults, things become easier.

Children these days have more important things to do than gossip. Only the idle ones, who leech of one another, stand back and make judgmental remarks of the others, eventually turning on each other.

Tia doesn't pause for a moment to start thinking about what would happen when the adults come back; there's no if: they're bound to come back, sooner or later, what with the Sparticle Project—that's the whole point, to bring the grown-ups back. It's different with Rocky. He's already turned fifteen, and he's about three months older than she is, and more than that, he acts like a typical fifteen-year old boy. Responsibility isn't something that comes second-nature to him, and he doesn't take on the role of caretaker.

He takes on the role of adventurer, but he's a leader too, and there's something bright and wonderful about him that causes for Rocky to come crashing into her life and disrupting the gradual peace that had formed before. "I think it's weird," Frankie blurts one day. The two of them are in the garden of the hotel, drowning the fabrics and threads into water and hanging them up on lines to dry; the system isn't that effective, but it conserves energy.

"What's weird?" Tia asks, then sighs, putting the clothes down. "Well, actually, everything's weird. Just the other day, I saw a four-year old carrying a gun and shooting another four-year old. It was a real gun, too, and I don't even know if the other four-year old survived." The experience had been surreal, but then again, these days, everybody above the age of five carried a weapon with them, just in case; biker gangs were becoming increasingly common, and Callum wasn't even the main opposition anymore.

A little pudgy boy by the name of Fizzy had taken over the world as they knew it, or at least the surroundings of England the children had found themselves in; there were people adapting themselves to live in trees, to live on riverboats, and around twenty or so children had already killed themselves. These days, what with the danger of being killed by one of Fizzy's bodyguards in order to keep up with the food supply increasing severely, it seemed logical to take one's life themselves rather than being guillotined or chopped up into limbs astrewn. "That's not weird, Tia. I'm talking about Rocky."

Tia raises an eyebrow, looking at Frankie inquisitively. "What's weird about Rocky?" _Other than the fact he completely abandoned his gang, without leaving proper leadership behind, to join the Sparticles, for no other reason that he wants to help, and god, there has to be reason, there's always a reason. _

"Everything," Frankie exaggerates the syllables. "Everything's weird about him."

...

In a world where fifteen-year olds are on the brink of retirement, it doesn't take long for things to spill out of control—because one day, Rocky and her are sitting on the sofa, limbs strewn about, his arm casually thrown around her shoulders, the smell of popcorn and peppermint chocolate (and something Tia would call love if she was that idealistic, which she tries not to be) permeating through the air. "What're you thinking about?"

"A wish," she tilts her head to the side, head resting on his shoulder. "A dream, something like that."

"What's your wish, then?"

There's a long pause of silence before she draws out the words. "For you to be a bit more normal." She pauses, "—'cause, you leave for three days and then you come back for an hour or two, and then you leave again, and I know that you have another group that you have to take care of, but sometimes, I just wish that you would stay: we could be a bit more normal, y'know?"

He tilts his head to the side, slightly. "Normal's not why you love me."

She coughs, and pulls back, stuttering. "I never said I love you."

...

Tia likes her coffee with three spoons of sugar.

Rocky doesn't stay long enough to find out.

...

It's three weeks after the breakup that Jeffrey approaches her; he's of hesitant moves and ashen skins and he treats her like she's some fragile doll. "Frankie's gone out to refill the water supply. Thought you should go with her."

Tia rolls her eyes, then closes them for a moment, then sits up, limbs splayed out at uncomfortable angles. "I'm tired."

"Tia," he says, in a warning tone.

"Alright, alright, fine. I'll go. I could use the exercise anyway."

...

Tia's the only one to notice the anomaly. On a routine trip to the woods to search for berries and non-poisonous nuts, she notices a black spiderweb spreading rapidly across the trunks of the trees: it spreads quickly, and for a moment, she feels trapped in her stance, as though she is sinking into the ground of quicksand, but then her feet are released, and she runs to nowhere.

She returns, two weeks later, and only brings it up to the rest of the group once she spots the black leafs on which cherries are growing, leafs and leafs of lined paper filled with unintelligible cursive handwriting, words marred by the rain, the constant plague that seems to run down upon all of England. Then the barrier starts being broken down quicker and quicker, and there are murmurs of adults elsewhere in the world, and Tia gives in to her mind. "The adults are back," Reese speaks confidently. "They're back, then. Or if they're not back, they're trying to send us a signal from the Other Side."

Holly only scoffs. "The Other Side?"

"The Other Side," Reese confirms. "I saw it. Several times." There's this brilliant, sort of sad smile lighting up her face and there's a desperate ache inside of Tia, because this childlike hope needs to be crushed eventually (and she sort of gets Holly for a moment, except Holly's trying to change herself, and it seems as though they're retrogressing. Because at the beginning, as soon as the adults had disappeared, everybody was trying to be like an adult, like they were in control of themselves—as soon as they realized that nobody had a clue of what was going on, they stopped trying and just aimed for living and survival, or something like that). "It's out there, y'know, it's not a lie. It's out there."

...

She kisses Jeffrey one week: he tastes like citrus and jasmine flowers, and Tia pecks him on the cheek, blushes, and smiles awkwardly, and hours later, hates herself for it. The next, Tia finds herself kissing Rocky: he's an adventure, reckless, and he never stays long enough to find out anything about her; he's always gone in the morning, and never leaves a letter behind.

But for all the hours that one of them is not there, the other _is _there, and her mind, they combine together into the same person: somebody that wants her, and there's no differentiation between Jeffrey and Rocky until Rocky leaves and Jeffrey stays, and suddenly, that's the most important difference in the world.


End file.
